Memorial to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, circa 16 December 1843–12 February 1844, Thomas Bullock First Copy
Source Note
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , JS, , and , Memorial, , Hancock Co., IL, to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, , 21 Dec. 1843; handwriting of ; docket in handwriting of ; notation in handwriting of ; endorsements in handwriting of ; seventeen pages; JS Office Papers, CHL.
a still more heart rending scene. In vain had we appealed to the Constituted authorities of for protection and redress of our former grievances. In vain we now stretched out our hands and appealed as the Citizens of this great to the sympathies, to the Justice and magnanimity of those in power. In vain we implored again and again at the feet of our former persecutor aid and protection against the ravages and murders now inflicted upon our defenceless and unoffending Citizens. The Cry of American Citizens already twice driven and deprived of Liberty could not penetrate their adamantine hearts. The instead of sending us aid issued a proclamation for our Extermination and banishment, ordered out the forces of the placed them under the command of , who, to execute these exterminating orders marched several thousand troops into our Settlements in , where, unrestrained by fear of law or justice and urged on by the highest authority of the , they laid waste our fields of corn, shot down our Cattle and Hogs for sport, burned our dwellings, inhumanly butchered some 18 or 20 defenceless Citizens, dragged from their hiding places little Children and placing the muzzles of their guns to their heads shot them with the most horrid oaths and imprecations. An aged hero and patriot of the Revolution, who served under General [George] Washington while in the act of pleading for quarters was cruelly murdered and hewed in pieces with an old Corn Cutter, and in addition to all these savage acts of barbarity they forcibly dragged virtuous and inoffensive females from their dwellings, bound them upon benches used for public worship where they in great numbers ravished them in the most brutal manner. Some fifty or sixty of the Citizens were thrust into prisons and dungeons, where, bound in chains, they were fed on human flesh while their families and some fifteen thousand others, were, at the point of the bayonet forcibly expelled from the . In the mean time to pay the expences of these horrid outrages they confiscated our property, and robbed us of all our possessions. Before our final expulsion with a faint and [p. [4]]